My Essay Question: Is Autism awareness helped or distorted by Media Representation?

Most television detective series have had a go at autism, usually creating a charicature that must give a bad impression: eg Frost, Cracker, Lewis (and indeed Hathaway his side kick shows hints of it). Police and detective fiction tries to use it to create a sympathetic story but whether they are conscious of the consequences is another matter.

Some portrayals of Sherlock Homes have strong undertones of AS.

On a slightly different condition chromosome imbalance eg Fragile X- There was a television series in the 60s on Science Fiction called DOOMWATCH. One instalment showed someone with this who was very tall. It got the public imagination and very tall kids found themselves under very unpleasant scrutiny at school and in shops, cinemas etc. It did a lot of harm because the series writers didn't consider the public reaction and the possible impact on any tall kids.

Therefore I wonder what effect detective and police drama portrayals have every time they tackle AS.

brilliant question and topic for a uni essay, i will say i think its both positive and negative

many tv series show the 'funny' side to autism, and not the realistic side, which is actually kinda stressful, especially with adults as there is little help for their family and friends or them, as its focused mainly on children and their family etc

so i'd look into that

good luck

If he is about to start third year, he should probably have done some planning over the summer and perhaps attempted a review of literature related to the chosen topic. In reality very few students get this far.

Hence few students seem to have done any research so far when they enrol for year 3 (or what's referred to often now as level 6)

He really needs to see an academic tutor/lecturer, such as the one most likely to be allocated as his research supervisor, to get the right advice.  But his university website, or the subject web pages should have dissertation guidance pages that indicate what he should and should not do.

UWE is fairly new as a university and might not be up to speed on good practice - some new universities are as good as older, but not all.

What research have you done so far?

Thanks for your help, longman.

Sorry for not thinking it through properly.

Perhaps look for suggestions in the normal way of discussion, but don't use a discussion forum like this as part of your data. There are rules binding confidentiality of information on this forum (check community rules). Also even though people use profile names rather than real names information, they give on here could compromise them if repeated elsewhere. And you have to dispose of collected data correctly.

Also data collected in this way isn't statistically valid and could reduce your mark. You need to collect data in a fashion that ensures validity of results.

Talk to you dissertation supervisor about the ethics of research - what you can use as data and what you cannot. This is something that your university will have procedural guidance on, possible on the dissertation guideline pages on the university website. But also, through your supervisor, talk to special needs education at your university, if they have a school or faculty of education. They may have ideas on how to proceed.